


Blame It on the... (Wait for It)

by vatreniworld



Category: Men's Football RPF
Genre: Crack, Drinking, Fluff and Crack, Gen, Karaoke, Oh look more crackfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-05
Updated: 2019-02-05
Packaged: 2019-10-22 23:04:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17671817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vatreniworld/pseuds/vatreniworld
Summary: Mario just wanted a relaxing night at the bar. Was that too much to ask?





	Blame It on the... (Wait for It)

**Author's Note:**

> Musical Inspiration: "When I Grow Up" by The Pussycat Dolls and the Mayday Parade cover
> 
> Crossposted from my blog.

It was an unspoken rule in the national team that if either Dejan or Šime suggested something, it was probably going to end in chaos.

Still, despite knowing this rule, Mario found himself at a bar on a Friday night with Peri, Raketa, Luka, Suba, Lovre, and the Dynamic Duo after much begging on the latters’ part.

To say the bar was packed would be an understatement. Mario couldn’t believe they managed to snag a table big enough for their party.

Suba and Lovre offered to grab drinks for everyone and the night dissolved into the bubbly, fuzzy haze that only alcohol could provide.

Mario sipped his beer slowly.

“Oooh, look!” Luka bounced up and down in his seat like he was on a sugar high. Perhaps it was the two drinks he’d had already talking. “They have a karaoke machine.”

“No!” Mario and Suba shouted at the same time.

Luka’s face fell. “Why not?”

“We don’t want to disturb the other people,” Suba explained with a level head.

Mario, on the other hand, was two drinks past level headed. “I don’t want my ears to bleed.”

“How rude!” Luka huffed.

Raketa hummed as he guzzled the dregs of his beer. “I kind of want to try it out, too…” he trailed off.

Even if Raketa phrased it in the most innocent way possible, to Mario it was as good as a threat.

“Not a chance,” Mario said definitively, cutting off any further discussion about the karaoke machine.

Conversation shifted naturally back to what they hoped to focus on in the upcoming games -- what they needed to improve, what their goals for the season were, how they planned to accomplish these things. Suba and Lovre talked goalie shop at a speed nobody else could follow.

(Peri asked, “Mandžo, do you understand what they’re saying?”

“Like any foreign language, I can pick up phrases but the rest is gibberish.”)

Some number of minutes later the conversation transitioned from football to their ideal bra size to what animal they would be if they believed in reincarnation.

“Gotta take a leak,” Mario said and headed for the bathroom.

He had to hand it to Dejo, going out for a lowkey night of drinking and eating garbage bar food was exactly what they needed to lighten their spirits.

After he finished washing his hands, Mario began the trek down the long hallway back to the bar. He frowned at a loud booming sound. The volume was significantly higher than when he left.

The sight that met him when he reached the end of the hall was spectacular to say the least.

Mario dragged a hand down his face, growling, “I go to the bathroom for literally  _fives minutes_  and everything goes to shit.”

Raketa and Luka stood on a small platform that the bar considered its “stage,” banging their heads in time with a song that Mario thought would give him an aneurysm.

“When I grow up!” Luka sang.

Mario likened it more to a squall, but with this much alcohol involved it didn’t matter how it sounded.

Raketa joined in, “I wanna be famous! I wanna be a star! I wanna be in movies!”

“When I grow up!”

“I wanna see the world, drive nice cars, I wanna have boobies!”

“Didn’t that say ‘groupies’?” Lovre asked, genuinely afraid at this point.

“Well spotted, young grasshopper,” Suba droned.

Mario turned to Suba and Peri. “How could you let this happen?” he demanded.

Suba rolled his eyes.

Peri jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Why don’t you ask  _them_?” he snarled, annoyed. “Šime stole my drink, too,” he grumbled.

In the corner of the bar Dejan and Šime were --

Mario cocked his head with a grimace. He couldn’t actually tell what they were doing. Dancing? Raving? Acting like a couple of children?

“I’d rather not,” he said, taking his seat once more. “Just give me the gist of it.”

Suba searched the bottom of the already empty french fry basket for just one more fry. His eyes dragged over to Dejan’s abandoned plate of onion rings. He swiftly pulled it closer to him only to watch Peri snatch up two. “Hey!”

Peri shoved them both in his mouth like a chipmunk with acorns (very large acorns).

“Focus!” Mario snapped.

“What do you want us to say?” Suba asked. “Šime convinced Raketa and Luka to take shots. Dejan got the karaoke machine set up and  _in his infinite wisdom_ ,” he added sarcastically, “chose the one song that he knew would get him the most hits on instagram.”

So that’s what those two were doing over there: blackmail reconnaissance.

Mario looked at Suba and Peri flatly. “And how exactly did they pull this off in  _five freaking minutes_?”

Peri swallowed his onion rings. “They bought us french fries,” he stated and amended, “and a beer a piece.”

Mario toyed with the idea of smacking both of them. “I don’t get paid enough to put up with this shit,” he sighed, rubbing his temples.

“You get  _paid_?” Peri scoffed.

“It’s in my contract.”

“You weren’t joking?!”

Suba growled, shoving another onion ring in his mouth. “Raketa didn’t even make an hour.”

“YEAH! Take it off!” encouraged a group of women who Mario guessed were throwing a bachelorette party if the fluffy crown and sparkly sashes were any indication.

Mario blinked hard. Were those handcuffs one of them had?

Raketa was in the process of pulling his shirt up his midsection. “It’s too hot in here,” he panted into the microphone, tongue lolling out like a puppy that was in desperate need of a nap.

While the bachelorette entourage cat-called and whooped enthusiastically, everyone from the national team knew there wasn’t any innuendo or double entendre to Raketa’s words. The moment he got overheated, it was downhill from there.

Šime and Dejan were still recording the whole debacle, faces pulled in exaggerated facades of calm with unshed tears of mirth teeming at their eyes. Šime’s hand shook from trying to hold his cackles at bay.

Dalić was going to kill Mario.

“How long you think ‘til they kick us out?” Peri asked and grabbed an onion ring before Suba finished off the basket in annoyance.

“Not long,” Mario said, eyes lazily tracking the projectile motion of Raketa’s shirt flying across the room to their table. “Two minutes tops,” he corrected.

Luka played with the karaoke machine, but couldn’t seem to get it to work and settled for his own acapella rendition of “My Heart Will Go On,” voice scratching like a wailing cat at certain notes.

Unperturbed, Raketa’s hands moved to fiddle with buckle of his belt.

Cue another round of applause and waving of bank notes from the bachelorette party.

Šime and Dejan couldn’t contain their laughter any longer and collapsed in a heap of juvenile laughter on the floor. Šime’s cheeks flushed bright red as his laughter got louder and louder, almost completely drowning out Luka’s attempts at singing. Dejan clutched his stomach, alternating between wheezing laughter and coughing.

“RAKETA, DON’T YOU DARE!” Suba howled around a mouthful of onion rings.

Peri was already way ahead of both Mario and Suba, bolting for the stage, thrusting a hand down the back of Raketa’s belt, and yanking him down.

Lovre stumbled out of his seat to give Peri a hand. He grabbed Raketa around the waist and lifted him off the ground like a thrashing goat.

Luka, either oblivious to the mayhem or too used to it, continued to blast, “You’re  _heeeeere_! There’s  _NO_ -thing I feeeear!”

Mario thought he lost consciousness for a couple seconds.

Raketa floundered in the air, shouting, “It’s too damn hot for this, Peri! LET ME BE FREE!”

“ARE YOU DRUNK OR HIGH?!” Suba barked.

Dejan and Šime were no closer to getting off the floor. Just when they might have been close to regaining some composure, Raketa went and started taking off other articles of clothing (since Peri had a firm hand on his belt, he changed course to his shoes and socks).

“You are  _SAFE_  in my,” Luka pounded his chest with a fist, “ _heart_  and my heart will go ON AND  _OOOOON_!” He threw his head back and his arms out wide, striking a Madonna-esque ending pose.

The bar suddenly went deadly quiet.

Raketa froze in Lovre’s arms while Peri kept a vice grip on the belt. Dejan and Šime sat like meerkats, blinking owlishly. The bachelorette party was no longer taking pictures of Raketa’s antics.

A piece of silverware dropped on the ground with a clatter.

Luka raised his head. “What?” he asked, confused.

The bartender leaned forward and met Mario’s gaze.

Mario held up his hands in surrender. “Yeah, yeah, we’re going.”

As quickly as they could -- without knocking over any pieces of furniture or running into walls -- the team filed out the door with Mario sweeping the rear.

Suba had an arm around Luka and Raketa’s shoulders to prevent them from wandering off (in Luka’s case) or bolting like a startled deer (in Raketa’s case).

Dejan and Šime leaned against each other for support, humming the “la la la” section of “Marica” in rounds.

Slowly, with the combined efforts of Mario, Peri, and Suba’s Uber accounts, they were able to get their four tanked friends to their homes with little struggle. (Suba made sure Raketa put his shirt back on -- he left his shoes and socks off, though -- with a stern glare before shoving him in his Uber.)

Lovre even offered to carry Luka home after he started listing to the side with sleepiness.

Mario assured him that wouldn’t be necessary.

“New rules,” he pointed at Suba and Peri.

“One: Dejan and Šime aren’t allowed to choose bars anymore. Two: Raketa is limited to two drinks total. No compromises. Got it?”

“Agreed,” Suba and Peri groaned at the same time.

Mario raked a hand through his hair. “Guess I’ll see you guys tomorrow,” he said and offered a halfhearted wave.

Suba and Peri grunted in assent and went their separate ways.

Mario couldn’t wait to get home and collapse.

(He soon lived to regret his haste to fall asleep as visions of Raketa stripping haunted his dreams for the rest of the night.)


End file.
